Police have re-iterated that the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi remains a suspect in the attack more than three months after the outrage which left 22 dead.

Hashem Abedi was arrested in Tripoli, Libya, shortly after the bombing and now is reportedly going to be tried in the north African country over his alleged involvement in the May 22 terror attack.

Counter terrorism police have published an update on the huge scale of the continuing investigation and repeated that Hashem Abedi was a suspect and that officers had held discussions with the Libyan authorities about him.They denied reports in the national media that he’d been interviewed several times by British police.

A statement released on behalf of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, which is leading the investigation, said: “The investigation into the attack by Salman Abedi continues.

“The investigation is incredibly complicated. We now have over one million lines of communication data being examined. We have taken over 1,000 statements and have seized almost 11,000 exhibits. We still have staff drawn from across CT (counter terrorism) policing to support the investigation and we will maintain this intensity for many months.

“The investigation has made significant progress and we now have a much clearer understanding of what happened. We have previously explained that we do not believe that this terrible attack was part of a wider plot and this remains the case.”

The statement added: “It has been reported widely that Hashem Abedi, who is under investigation, is still in Libya. We have previously explained that Hashem Abedi is of interest to the inquiry. This remains the case